Media Release

KAP Federal Leader and Member for Kennedy has commended rural leaders for their tenacious fight in pressuring the Qld LNP Government to finally release $60m of Federal emergency relief funds for farmers.

“Full credit must go to Barry Hughes and his Cattlemen’s Crisis Committee team from our North Qld summit – who on Monday showed the Indonesian Ambassador the region – as well as the steering committee from our Rural Finance Roundtable in Brisbane, who have fought tirelessly on behalf of food producers suffering insurmountable debt; an unlevel playing field on the global market thanks to successive government policies; and now, extreme weather,” said Mr Katter.

“In the nine weeks since the Federal Government announced the $420m national farm finance package (with $60m to Qld) for low-cost loans, we’ve had cattle dying, families being ripped off the land, and vast tracts of rural land sold up.
“Whilst we’re into our third month of what can only be described as playing politics, the cost to people’s lives has been sickening.

“We thank the Federal Government for the $60m but we say with aggression that really, some $300m would be needed to address this situation.

“And whilst we may have won this and other small battles, we’ve still got the war in terms of long-term policies needed to see agriculture thrive again in this country.

“We are bitterly disappointed that both governments have not moved to a reconstruction board approach, as advocated by Rowell Walton at the debt summit in Brisbane. The reconstruction board approach would, over two years, provide $200m at 2 per cent interest, and a $2m subsidy for two years.”

Mr Katter’s comments follow discussions with the Prime Minister and the Treasurer, as well as the Agriculture Minister, who has promised serious consideration of the reconstruction board approach.

Mr Katter said: “We have put legislation before both houses of Parliament to establish, within the Reserve Bank, an Australian Reconstruction and Development Board – and we put the major parties on notice as they count down their election campaigns.

“This is the first time in nearly 100 years that Australian farmers – the wheat growers in WA, dairy farmers in Victoria and cattlemen in Qld – have had to face natural and man-made disasters with no bridging financial mechanisms.

“What we also need to do is find a way of getting rid of the hundreds of thousands of head of starving cattle. Whilst relations with Indonesia have improved following the continuing dialogue with the Ambassador, and we’ve seen a live cattle quota boost for the first half of the year, what we really need now is another quota allocation for the second half of the year.

“And whilst we’ve got the RBA acknowledging a problem with the too-high dollar and declining industries in bringing down interest rates, our Government must further pressure down the dollar, which makes it up to 60 per cent cheaper to import foreign product at the expense of Australian jobs and industries.

“Both state and federal governments must be made to shoulder their responsibilities since most of these problems are attributable to the policies of successive governments. And we continue to urge the banks to also shoulder a sense of responsibility in this crisis,” Mr Katter said.